Currently, the existing material drying processes adopt various mechanisms to determine the real-time dew-point value of a material and to estimate the total moisture content of the material. However, these processes do not provide an accurate real-time dew-point estimate as the dew-point of the material may vary over a period during the material drying process. Further, the existing drying process does not allow the system to provide a valid dew-point value within which the system must be capable of estimating the total moisture content of the material.
PCT publication no. WO2013093942 discloses a method and a device for moisture determination and control using real-time measurement of the material moisture content at an inlet and outlet of the drying process, such as in a drying hopper. Here, the drying process is controlled by anticipating the drying load based on the moisture content of the incoming material to be dried.
CN 103399486 discloses a temperature optical energy-saving control method for a plastic dryer. The method adopts a predictive control strategy based on multi-model switching to identify dynamic characteristics of air temperature of the plastic dryer and establish a switching system model of an object under each typical working condition. An optical target function with constraint is established by utilizing a switching rule and a mixed neural network is formed by neural networks for processing a continuous variable and a discrete binary variable together.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,433,443 B2 relates to a method for online monitoring of polymerization reaction in a fluid bed reactor to generate data indicative of imminent occurrence of a discontinuity event (such as sheeting). The method further relates to optional control of the reaction to prevent the occurrence of the discontinuity event.
CN 201672991 relates to a dry and wet bulb temperature acquisition device performing functions of dry and wet bulb temperature acquisition, wireless data receiving and transmitting, and dry and wet bulb temperature display.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,021,462 B2 relates to a dehumidification plant for granular materials having varying physicochemical characteristics, with energy consumption less than that of the dehumidification process. This patent also relates to a process for regenerating at least one process tower in a granular material dehumidification plant.
EP 2186613 B1 relates to a high efficiency system for dehumidifying and/or drying plastic material. The system enables electronic process control of hopper parameters monitored through sensors and devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,606 B2 relates to an apparatus and a method for controlling moisture content of a particulate material in a hopper. The apparatus comprises a dew-point sensor to output a signal based on the sensed moisture content of the material and a control circuitry to cause the selector to operate based on output signal.
The existing drying process does not allow a system to provide a valid dew-point value within which the system must be capable of estimating the total moisture content of the material. Hence, there is a need for a system that provides an accurate real-time valid dew-point value within which the moisture content of the material can be determined during the material drying process.